7.
Updating on my previous post, I finally – finally – finished The Mirror of Simple Souls by Margaret Porette. I’m so happy because it wasn’t easy and I may or may not have something to say about it. Maybe in general terms, but even to me it was too much. And not even on purpose, another book came out: Dissident women, beguines, and the quest for spiritual authority by Catherine Lambert. I’m going to read it after taking 1000 naps. I mean, the book title says everything. What I enjoyed the most about Margaret was precisely the independence with which she lived her faith, especially at a time when independence and women were mutually exclusive. I wrote the following text a while ago, but didn’t publish it because I didn’t think it was that good but here goes.
I was listening to a song called Ballad of the Prodigal Son. It's terribly beautiful and collected. It's actually funny that the story, being a joyful one, and with a happy ending, at least for the father and the son – the brother being rightfully pissed at the special treatment and kinda missing the point – the angelic voice shifted tone just in the right measure to bring tears to my eyes. I still have no idea why I listen to these things, but I do. Oh, it's late at night. Silence! And a midlife crisis.
Circling back, this is a very well-known story but as my memory fails me consistently, I don't recall it from my childhood; or maybe it was in a book a nanny gave me. I must have heard it, but without much contextual memory from those early years, I can only trust that the story reached me one day somehow. It’s common knowledge that the communion of saints is one of the fundamental principles of the Catholic Church. But why exactly do people need saints? What's a saint supposed to do? After all, Christ is Lord. He is, but sometimes you just need a little nudge to get there. The saints can do precisely that. So, a normal Catholic will tell you “we don't worship saints!” even though they may be talking with their favourite saints the whole day, but this is the part that they don't tell you so it can't get confused with “worshipping”. However, if they tell you that they're talking with other Catholics the entire day, it's not worshipping, it's a conversation. This is exactly what the communion of saints is – relishing in the very connection between earthly and heavenly things, and everything in between – that of holy people united by the sacraments and communion with Christ our saviour. Think about it as a connection between the human and the divine; the human turned holy, touched by grace and by the Holy Spirit which is common to us all. In other words, it’s being in touch.
Of course I’m only mentioning this in very loose terms, not even explaining anything, but you get the idea. Where I want to get at is, as made abundantly clear in a previous post, I have a favourite saint. That person died 400 years ago. I could try to update myself a little bit and choose another saint as a guide but I can’t. My head is resting on the perfect lap, if I can be so candid. I can push it a bit further and say that my body is being held by the perfect pair of arms and my soul is being fed the most eloquent whispers. That my will is being guided by the wisest actions and my dreams are being set on fire by the most ferocious passion. Ok, I’ll stop here before this gets weird – and it does. Remember that angel? Where do you think that passion comes from? It came from God, it was infused into a human being who subsequently wrote a number of theological teatrises that pierced the soul of another human being 400 years later. Now think about this as a web of connections, of a pulsating heart from where all arteries and veins expand. This is just the power of one saint and her communion with Christ. Think how many individuals are connected to Christ through a web of connections with other people, and these, with others. It is, in other terms, a Church.
My head is resting on the perfect lap My body is held by the perfect pair of arms My soul is fed the most eloquent whispers My will is guided by the wisest actions My dreams are lit by the most ferocious passion
Hah, it almost looks like I’m in love! Teresa of Avila, in her younger years, got access to a number of books. One of them was Letters of St. Jerome. See, St. Jerome was an inspiration to her and a guide in her own faith. As such, I also started reading his letters, learning that he was the translator of the Bible to Latin and a few other facts about his life. I wanted to read his letters, because they lingered in the eyes of Teresa and his words flipped a switch some time later. One of his letters caught my eye – To Theodosius and the rest of the anchorites. It was there that I saw Luke 15:3-5 and ended up reading the whole passage. For context, St. Jerome wrote: “I am the prodigal son who although I have squandered all the portion entrusted to me by my father, have not yet bowed the knee in submission to him; not yet have I commenced to put away from me the allurement of my former excesses.” Oh Jerome, how much we have in common! And then, by some weird coincidence, the heavenly voice I mentioned in the first paragraph starts singing the ballad that gave melody to my ears, a ballad previously unknown to me, playing on shuffle on YouTube, echoing the Holy Spirit, echoing Luke’s gospel, echoing Jerome, echoing Teresa, and piercing me.